The Games of Elements (Ninjago Hunger Games)
by xXJust-A-FanGirlXx
Summary: The Games of Elements is a tournament created by non-elementals, ruled by Master Chen. Ten years ago, Kai's father was selected to represent the Fire Village. He died. Ten years later, Kai is chosen, the last of his family. As he fights for the only thing he has ever known: survival and discovers more to fight for: friends and legacy. However, his demons aren't far behind.
1. The Reaping

" _Let the Games of Elements…begin!" a voice announced dramatically, the noise echoing everywhere as cannon booms mingled with the voice._ _ **He**_ _looked around frantically, but all that was visible was darkness. Screams filled the air, and_ _ **his**_ _ears were ringing. Despite echoing, the voice seemed to grow louder, the cannons became more frequent, the screams grew higher in pitch, and the people's voices started breaking from the screaming. Something was running out of_ _ **his**_ _ears, probably blood from the horrible sounds._

 _Spontaneously, as if they never existed, all other noise other than one single scream silenced. The black gave away to fire as one man's face came into view. Suddenly, the man's face paled in shock. Hands appeared around the man's head and grabbed him. Simultaneously, as if controlled by a higher power, they jerked._

 _The man fell to what could only be the ground in this darkness, his face frozen in horror with his mouth gaping. He was dead._

 _Then, like he was pulled by invisible strings, he rose jerkily, like an undead puppet being tugged around by a bad puppeteer. The ringing began to return with a vengeance. Slowly, step by shaky step, he approached and grabbed_ _ **him**_ _by the shoulders._

" _Save us._

" _Avenge us._

" _ **Stop him**_ _,"_ _the man cried out in a raspy broken voice. The ringing came to a climax of ear-splitting levels. The man's body shuddered and contracted before his black-hole of a mouth opened._

 _The man coughed, and blood splattered all over_ _ **his**_ _face._

 _ **It's time to wake up, Kai. See the world for what it is**_.

Kai jolted out of his night terror and sprang out of bed. He clawed at his ears, trying to get rid of the ringing that was no longer there. He practically scratched his own face trying to remove the blood splatter that was never there. Pulling his hands away, he could see that they were as they always were: calloused from working in the blacksmith shop with scars from cuts and burns, but no blood.

Kai's body was still quivering from the shock of his nightmare as he sat down shakily onto his bed. Ten years later and the fear tied to his father's death still haunted him. Especially the day before the reaping, which was the reaping where he was of age to participate this time.

Kai could feel the cold sweat clinging to him and the discomfort it brought. Despite how terrible he felt, he got to his feet to clean up for the Reaping.

The Reaping was a holiday as demanded by Master Chen where teenagers and young adults from ages fifteen to twenty-nine dressed up to be selected for the Games. Presentation and theatrics were vital for Chen. Those that weren't dressed to satisfaction could be arrested, penalized, or sometimes executed for treason against Master Chen. There really were fashion police.

Kai got to his sink, steadying and steeling himself from the nightmare and for the Reaping that was in a few hours. On the kind of bright side, his night terrors woke him up at ungodly hours, so he had more time to make sure he looked presentable. Kai also exercised a lot during early mornings to fill up his time – so even if his name was randomly picked, he figured that he wouldn't be the first to die. Following up on his schedule that had started years ago, Kai began to do various forms of muscle exercises that he'd heard about on the floor.

After finishing up, Kai turned on the faucet, and cold water poured out onto his twitchy hands. He took a deep breath, and his hands stilled. Sighing, he splashed the water onto his face, shivering as droplets ran down his chest. Kai ran a cold, wet hand through his untamable spikey hair and looked at himself in the small mirror.

Empty eyes with black shadows haunting the orange-brown irises in them stared back, nearly into his soul. Kai couldn't remember the last time he'd slept well or felt alive. Despite the fiery hotheadedness he had – which was especially strong even among fire elementals – the fire in his spirit hadn't reached his eyes in years.

Kai moved his focus up. His hair was as stubborn as he was, and the dark amber-brown strands defied gravity. They never gave in to anything, not even science. Kai scowled; he wished he still had that characteristic.

After he finished brushing his teeth with minimal toothpaste, Kai filled a tub with cold water for his bath. As he waited, Kai scratched at his arms idly – a bad habit that had earned him many bleeding, red scratches down his arms. He'd wake up many still-dark mornings to discover red splotches on his bed, bloody skin underneath his fingernails, and stinging pain in his arms.

Kai turned off the water and stripped down. The cold air bit at his skin as he stepped into the tub. Then, the icy water stabbed needles into his nerves, but Kai ignored it. Even as a fire elemental, he'd grown to endure the pain and the cold. He felt nothing inside, and everything was numbed as a result.

Kai picked up his miniscule soap bar and began to wash himself. When he moved his hand to set it down again, it fell into the water and sank to the bottom. Kai paused. _Sometimes_ , he thought, _I wish I could just sink and hit rock bottom and never come up for air. It'd be peaceful – drowning, that is._

Kai finished washing up. He knew the thoughts he had weren't healthy, but sometimes he just felt like they had been there so long they were already a part of him. Besides, the realization of the meaning behind his thoughts and the pain associated with them kept him alive, as ironic as that may seem.

Kai got out of the tub and walked to his clothes. His only nice suit was a black tuxedo with a red vest, black undershirt, and red tie. With his suit, he had one pair of hand-me-down black dress shoes from his father that Kai kept well polished in honor of him.

He stretched a bit to loosen up his muscles, since it'd be more difficult to do so with his suit on. Then, tugging on his clothes, Kai glanced at the time and realized that he spent a couple hours in the bath. The soap's size must've held him back longer than he'd expected. There was only about an hour left until the Reaping. Hurriedly finishing with dressing, Kai stood in front of his mirror and article by article of clothing, checked how he looked. Not to pat himself on the back, but he couldn't see anything major that was out of place except for his hair. Fortunately, he'd seen people walk around Reapings with worse hairstyles, so he figured that he was safe.

When it was forty minutes before the Reaping, Kai walked out of his little house and onto the dirt road that was covered in volcano ash. Due to the heat resistance that all fire elementals possessed, the Fire Village was responsible for mining and exporting precious minerals from around the volcanos. In total, the village had two large volcanos and three smaller ones, all of which were active and openly mined.

Kai had lots of time away from people to think and ponder to himself. Sometimes, he imagined what life in the Capital would be like while other times he thought of the Energy Rebellion. Apparently, eight decades ago, there was a Rebellion from the Energy Village. The strongest of all the elementals, destruction was inevitable from the battle between the powerful energy elementals and the weapons and tools that the non-elementals possessed. To the surprise of all the villages, especially those that aided the Energy Village, the non-elementals won the war, and energy elementals were almost wiped out.

However, one man was left alive. He was different from most other elementals in that he knew an ancient art that was forbidden for a long period of time, but due to the fact that near nobody knew how to do it, the ban was lifted. The man could do Spinjitzu. By harnessing his power, he could turn himself into a spinning tornado that helped him win all his fights – except the rebellion when he was the last remaining energy elemental. He was named the First Spinjitzu Master for being the first to perform Spinjitzu as far as any living person could remember. Later in his life, he had two sons that became famous for also mastering the art of Spinjitzu: Garmadon and his younger brother Wu. The last energy elementals relied on Garmadon's son, Lloyd Garmadon – who was barely old enough to be picked for the Reaping, and because he's the last energy elemental, his participation is guaranteed – since the First Spinjitzu Master had passed away and Wu did not have any children.

Kai continued to wonder how Lloyd would react to the Games; he was only fifteen years old, the youngest possible age for the Reaping. However, Kai was brought out of his thoughts as he realized he'd arrived to the Reaping registration. He was half an hour early, so there were only a couple people in line. As quickly as possible, Kai checked in and verified that he was at the Reaping. When he finished, he walked before the stage and monstrous screen that were set up by Chen's Anacondrai Cultists.

Wanting to get home as soon as he could, Kai waited for the crowds to flood in so that once the Reaping was done, he could rush home to be alone and not shoved into a sweaty crowd of ash-ridden fire elementals.

Finally, around fifteen minutes after Kai had arrived, well-dressed young adults began to flood the area. Of course, Kai made sure he was in the very back so that he wasn't surrounded and suffocated by people from all directions. When everybody had filtered in and the cultists verified that everyone had arrived, the Reaping began.

With a burst of static, both the speakers and the screen exploded to life in a simultaneously blinding and deafening boom. Master Chen's face solidified onto the screen, and he smiled at the camera.

"Sorry about that, Fire Village! Connection issues, just a small issue! No need to worry," Chen reassured with a knowing grin.

Of course, Chen would sound reasonable if not for the fact that he performed the same stunt every five years in every single village. Kai made a face after the meaningless apology. Chen never failed to _try_ to impress with theatrics.

"Ignore that connection error or whatever it was, and pay attention to me! Welcome, Fire Village, to the seventeenth Games of Elements!" Chen gave a dramatic, self-indulging pause as his cultists forced everybody to applaud him.

"Thank you, thank you! Okay, that's enough now. Let's get to the fun part…buttons! Now, I will press a button, and this bowl of names will spin until a name comes out. Then, I will announce who the _honor_ of the Games goes to!" Chen slapped a button giddily, and a large bowl of pieces of paper rose from the stage.

"Buttons!" Chen cheered as he pressed another one, and the bowl began to spin. It picked up speed and stopped immediately after a single, unfortunate slip of paper flew out One of the cultists nabbed the unlucky paper and sent the name on it in a message to Chen.

As Chen received the message, his eyes widened in what could only be pleasant surprise. "Oh, well, it seems we have a returning family this year!"

Kai, startled, snapped himself into focus and listened intently and anxiously for Chen's next words. _A returning…family? He couldn't mean…_ Fear crept into Kai, and a cold shiver made him tremble and feel like this was all just another one of his night terrors. _Please, oh, please to whatever higher power may exist: Don't be me!_

"The son of our fire competitor from two Games ago, Kai!" Chen called out to the shifting crowds.

Kai felt like he was going to fold in on himself and implode with emotions. Why? Why did it have to be him? Did Chen like drama so much that he prayed for some being to make Kai's name fly out of the bowl? Did that being hate Kai enough to condemn him like this? Why?

Eventually, having numbed the shock like he'd done with all other feelings, Kai slowly began to shove people aside to get to the path that people had made for him to walk up to the stage. He could feel hundreds of pitiful stares burning into him and hear the whispers of: _The son of a previous competitor…Man, I feel so bad for the kid…He can't be older than_ my _son…Poor kid…wasn't his father killed by the water elemental he'd allied with?_ At the last statement, Kai clenched his fists in anger, but kept walking. It was true; his father had befriended the water competitor ten years ago, and the elemental had turned on his father and killed him despite being from sister villages – which were pairs of villages that were neighbors and had similar histories. Both the Fire and Water Villages had supported the Energy Rebellion and were placed in dangerous areas with the fire elementals choking on active volcanos' ash and the occasional eruption and water elementals soaked from constant floods, storms, and the rare tsunami or hurricane.

Finally, as Kai dragged out his trek to the stage, Kai reached the steps to get onto the stage. As slowly as he walked when he woke up from a nightmare, Kai inched up the steps. _This can not be happening,_ Kai thought to himself, _this is just another…another dream, another nightmare, another reality. It'll be over, and I'll wake up._

Kai reached the top of the steps. A cultist was waiting at the top, ready to guide him to face Master Chen using a camera. As he stepped into the correct camera angle, Master Chen began clapping. With him, all the cultists and relieved fire elementals began applauding as well. They would get to go home safely to watch the Games.

"Welcome, seventeenth fire competitor, Kai! The honor of the Fire Village is with you! Remember, don't let your village down," Chen advised, "Any noble words?"

 _More like any_ last _words,_ Kai thought bitterly. A cultist shoved a microphone into his hands, and he clasped his hands around it. "I get nightmares a lot, but this one's a bit different from the others," Kai muttered, forgetting that the mic was pointed at his mouth.

Chen, for some twisted reason, began to laugh. "Oh, I like this one; he's funny! Welcome to the Games of Elements, Kai – the Fire Village competitor!"

With that, the screen and speakers turned off, the crowd began to disperse and murmur about Kai, and cultists surrounded him, veering him backstage to prepare to travel to Chen's Island. Only then, did Kai realize:

 _This isn't a dream. This isn't even a nightmare._

 _This is_ _ **real**_ _._


	2. Not Fire

As the cultists shoved Kai around to make him walk in what they probably thought was a perfectly straight line, Kai was lost in his thoughts – _drowning_ in his thoughts. _This is real,_ Kai thought, in horror, _this is actually happening. I'm going to the Games_. _I'm going to_ die _._

Everything seemed to move as one, and time was non-existent. Until Chen's Island, Kai's memories were a blur of pain, horror, shock, and, worst of all, _memories_.

Kai vaguely remembered being shoved unnecessarily roughly into a train car to be transported to the port where he would board a ship with all the other competitors and travel to Chen's private island. He was unsteady from the push onto the train, and a boy with blond hair was shoved in after him, which was strange because fire was typically the last element to arrive for chariots and interviews because of the traditional order. There were only supposed to be two people per car: one competitor from each sister village, and fire was second to the water village on the list.

Looking up, the only focused object in Kai's vision was a girl's face. She had short black hair with a light smile on her face. The girl gave off a very easy-going and mellow aura, and she seemed approachable. However, Kai wasn't entirely in his own body, so he only blinked evenly and steadied himself robotically. Kai looked away from her to glance at the blond boy who had been forced into the train behind him.

The boy was young – probably fifteen at the most – and looked nervous and unsure despite having an aura of pure power inside his small frame. Right as the boy realized he was being scrutinized by Kai and turned to make eye contact, Kai turned away so that all the boy could see was the side of his face.

"So, uh," a timid voice broke the silence, "I'm Lloyd, Lloyd Garmadon. What's your name?"

With a start, Kai registered that Lloyd was talking to him. "Kai," he replied shortly with a monotone voice, "Fire Village."

Lloyd turned expectantly to the girl.

"Oh, I'm Nya from the Water Village," she smiled kindly at Lloyd and gave Kai a worried glance, "Are you okay, Kai? You seem a bit out of it."

Kai wasn't used to people caring about his wellbeing. Automatically, he brushed her off with an, "I'm fine."

Nya didn't look very convinced, so Lloyd jumped in.

"You're the son of the competitor from ten years ago, aren't you? My dad talks about that year a lot," Lloyd asked, oblivious to the effect it had on Kai.

Kai felt something inside him boil in hatred, and that something jumped into his throat, choking him from speaking too much while his eyes watered from pain. He lowered his head to hide his pain. "Yeah," he whispered in response, fearing that his tears would fall if he said more.

In his peripheral vision and through his tears, Kai could see Nya turning away from him. Both of them could feel the tension from ten years ago when Kai's father had been killed. Lloyd seemed confused; apparently, his father didn't tell him everything.

"I'm sorry, Kai," Lloyd mumbled as Kai looked up a bit with tears streaming down his cheeks, "I don't know what happened, but I think it was what I said. I'm sorry."

Kai buried his face into his arms and shook his head side to side to wipe his face. "It's okay. Not your fault if you don't know the whole story," Kai said with his voice muffled a bit by his clothes.

A long awkward pause followed with nobody knowing what to say. Kai felt like he was about to fall asleep.

"For what it's worth," Nya suddenly said confidently, and Kai jolted from his serene state of falling-asleep, "I'm sorry, too. I know I didn't do anything, but I feel like I should apologize on behalf of being a water elemental because of what happened to your father."

Kai didn't say anything.

Nya's face fell, and she stopped talking and just looked out the train's windows.

Lloyd fell asleep, still perplexed.

 _Kai blinked away tears as he woke up. Strange, he didn't remember having a nightmare for the first time in…years. He was back home, but something was different. His bed wasn't this big before, and he didn't usually feel this energetic. Kai hopped out of bed and changed into his clothes. When did his clothes turn so childish? He shrugged it off – they were clothes no matter how immature they were. However, Kai couldn't help but feel that something was off; wasn't he supposed to be somewhere else?_

 _Kai shook off his thoughts as he noticed that someone was cooking downstairs. He could hear the sizzling of a pan and smell the food. Cautiously, Kai made his way downstairs. At the bottom, Kai's heart dropped._

" _Kai! I see you finally got up, spitfire," Kai's father looked up with a smile when he noticed Kai had gotten to the kitchen. Kai stood there, completely frozen with his brain short-circuiting. His dad? He was…here._

" _No," Kai whispered, "you're dead."_

" _What was that?" Kai's father frowned, "Are you okay, spitfire?"_

 _Kai threw away his doubts; nothing else mattered because he should just enjoy the fact that his father was_ back _. "Yeah, sorry, just a little sleepy, dad," Kai smiled, genuinely for the first time in a decade, "what're you making? It smells really good."_

 _Kai's father smiled warmly at Kai as he walked over to his father, "Nothing really – after all, I'm dead, aren't I?"_

What?

 _Kai was falling into a tunnel of darkness, and his father's smiling face stared down at him from the beginning of the tunnel and faded as Kai's dream dissolved into darkness._

" _Ugh," Kai groaned as he slowly rose into consciousness "where am I?" Kai looked around. He was back home again, but this time, he was in his house's living room. Kai stood up._

 _There was the fireplace with a small fire burning, the chairs that his father never sat in, and the drawer – oh, the forbidden drawer. Kai was never allowed to look into it. Kai walked over to it. and his hand ghosted over the handle, conflicted about whether or not he should open it. Finally, Kai made up his mind and tugged the drawer open._

 _Inside was a half burnt scrapbook._

 _Slowly, Kai reached in and grabbed the crumbling book. He ran a finger over the black and brown spine of the ash-covered book and watched as burnt pieces of the book stuck to his hand. With shaky hands, Kai gently grasped a page and began to turn it. A picture was attached to the page of a man and a woman holding a baby. With a start, Kai realized that the man was his father in his younger years. That would make the woman Kai's mother, Kai concluded. Sadness flooded Kai's body as he saw how genuinely happy his father had been, not like he was in Kai's memories: acting happy for Kai's sake._

 _Then, Kai felt anger rush through and replace the sadness. His mother had left his father; it was_ her _fault that his father had been the way he was when Kai was growing up. Tears blinded him as they threatened to fall. Kai tried to blink them back as he reached for the next page._

" _Kai, what are you doing?" a voice rose in alarm, making Kai whip his head around. There stood his father, who looked at least five years older than he did in the picture._

" _I – uh, nothing, father," Kai stumbled over his words. His father marched angrily towards the scrapbook in Kai's hands and snatched it from him._

" _You know you aren't supposed to look through the drawers! What came over you? Why can't you just understand that you aren't supposed to do some things? Why won't you understand?" Kai's father cried, upset. He collapsed, squeezing the book to his chest as he cried freely. His chin was tucked onto the book, and he had shrunk into a ball. Kai had a feeling his father wasn't talking to him anymore, but his tears fell anyway. His father never yelled at him, not even for breaking valuable items in the house._

" _Father – I – I can explain…" Kai responded lamely, still stuttering over his tears._

 _Suddenly, his father's head jerked up, his eyes frozen wide._

" _You should never have been born."_

 _The tear tracks on his father's face transformed into thick blood, painting his father's visage into a canvas of scarlet and crimson. The whites of his eyes were scratched with red, and the light faded from his eyes._ _An invisible knife began to drag across his father's throat, and blood fell from the slit as his father fell over onto his side, dead._

 _Cautiously and crying, Kai stepped towards his father's body. Laying a shaky hand on his body, Kai realized that he was drenched. Vomit crawled up Kai's throat as he remembered that this was how his father had died: He had been drowned alive with his throat slit for everybody in the villages to witness._

 _Then, Kai's hand went through his father's body. When Kai pulled his hand back, it was wet. Kai looked around himself. The room and body were melting away into dark, swirling water. Still in shock, Kai couldn't process that he was stuck in the center of a deadly whirlpool. Right as he consciously processed his predicament, his lower body was swept from beneath him, and he drowned into darkness._

"Kai! Wake up!" Somebody was shaking Kai violently as he came to. He could feel the sensation of water filling his lungs and his body being dragged around by rushing water. Panicked, he jerked awake and sat up quickly.

"Ow!" Kai blinked and squinted when light blinded his eyes. Lloyd was rubbing his head and pouting. Nya asked him if he was okay with a not-so-suppressed amused smile on her face.

"Sorry, did I hit you?" Kai apologized as he noticed the stinging in his left hand. Nya looked over Lloyd and deemed him uninjured.

"Yeah, it's fine, though," Lloyd assured Kai with a wince as Nya poked his cheek, "I shouldn't have been so close to someone who was having a nightmare right before they wake up."

Kai frowned, "How'd you know I was having a nightmare?"

Lloyd and Nya shared a look. "Kai," Nya began, "you were thrashing around a bit near the end, and, uh," Nya gestured towards her face vaguely.

"And what?" Kai demanded.

"You were crying," Lloyd delivered bluntly. Nya elbowed him. "Ow, he was! And he was the one to ask," Lloyd protested.

"That doesn't mean you should tell him so…" Nya sighed exasperatedly.

"It's fine. I'm not a big fan of backhanded methods, anyway," Kai wiped his tears and interjected, feeling kind of forgotten as a bystander of the two bickering, "I'm more of a straightforward kind of guy.

"Why'd you wake me up, then?"

"Oh," Lloyd brightened up, "mostly because you were dreaming, but also we're almost to the port! You can see the non-elemental cities outside! I think the train is stopping – and there's a crowd waiting for us!" Lloyd practically bounced to the window to wave at all the rich citizens.

Kai scowled at Lloyd's antics. The non-elementals were not people that he wanted to suck up to – even if it meant more supporters during the Games. Speaking of sucking up…

Kai turned to Nya, "Did the senseis visit our train car?"

"Not yet, but I can tell that _he_ won't need it as much as you," Nya jerked her head lightly in Lloyd's direction, "he's doing fine gaining supporters from the non-elementals and being the youngest of us all is definitely a card he can pull. You, on the other hand, might need some help with mental control and whatever. I don't know what you can do with fire, but you obviously are going to need help with people skills – not that I'm one to judge harshly, but we have to think realistically, Kai."

Kai didn't acknowledge what she said, and he didn't really want to. Somewhere inside himself, he didn't want to die. He wanted to win and leave the horrors of his quite literally depressing past life. But…he also knows that death is closure, and he's heard that death is the gateway to eternal life. Does he want eternal life? Can he achieve closure while alive? Will he ever achieve closure? Would the Games that his father died in give him closure? Kai had too many questions, and too much to think about.

"And finally, we have Fire, Water, and Energy, our special competitor!" someone announced exaggeratedly as they entered the train car, "This is your last stop, senseis. Now if you excuse me, I need to go check if they added the puffy potsticker back on the menus." With that, Dareth left the train and into the flood of non-elementals.

Sensei Wu entered first. He nodded to Kai as a greeting and motioned for Nya to follow him to the opposite side of the train car. With his staff, Sensei Wu clicked a button and a dividing wall rose to divide the train car.

Kai watched, enraptured, as the wall slide from its resting position. Suddenly, someone flicked the side of his head. "Ow! What the –" Kai rubbed his head and stood to glare at his attacker. The glare slid off his face as he realized he was looking at Sensei Garmadon, the older of the two senseis.

"Get your head out of the clouds, Fire. This is life or death, not some sort of dream," Garmadon snapped sharply, "Out in the Games, if you lose focus –" Garmadon swept Kai's feet from beneath him and pinned Kai to the ground with a hand at his throat, "– you're dead."

Kai tensed grunted at the impact, but relaxed right after. When Garmadon let up his hold, Kai lashed back and kicked out to knock Garmadon off balance. Flexing his upper body and abs, Kai jumped to his feet, ready for any further attacks. Instead, Garmadon simply sat up on the floor and chuckled, crossing his legs.

"I must say, most competitors have as much spirit burning in them so soon after I meet them," Garmadon's eyes betrayed nothing, but he gave a small sideways smile, "You've made quite the first impression, Fire."

Kai didn't know how to feel about the compliment, but he did know how to respond. "So have you," he replied curtly. The train lurched to a halt as they reached their stop.

Kai walked to the door briskly and prepared to get off before turning around to retort harshly, "And my name's Kai, not 'Fire.'"

After Kai made his point, he left the silenced train car.


End file.
